Writer's Glossary - O

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on acceptance

Payment made to a writer or artist for his work when the work is accepted for publication, regardless of when it will appear in print.

on publication

Payment made to a writer or artist for his work when the work appears in print, regardless of when it was accepted.

one-time rights

Legal rights purchased to print a writer's or artist's work once. All other rights immediately revert to the owner on publication, without any exclusivity period.

option

A clause in a contract giving the purchasing party "first dibs" on future rights, usually with a monetary payment. Typical options could be foreign publication rights for a book publisher, movie rights for a production company that may decide to make a movie out of a book, and so on. Options usually are of limited duration and if the purchaser does not exercise that option within a specified period of time, the option is lost and the rights revert to the owner of the work.

For example, a producer might take a three year option and pay $10,000; the ten grand is the writer's to keep, but he may not contract the movie rights to anyone else for three years. If, before the end of that three year period, the producer wishes to exercise his option and make a movie, the rights to do so are then granted and the writer is paid an additional sum of money as agreed in the contract. If he does not exercise that option within three years, the writer is then free to market the movie rights elsewhere.